Revision as of 16:18, 16 November 2012

Latvian is the official language in the Republic of Latvia, spoken natively by approximately 60% of the residents of Latvia, approximately 1,250,000 people. Worldwide it is estimated to be spoken by 1,504,880 people, a 2009 estimate from Ethnologue. It is an Indo-European language that shares its own Baltic language group with Lithuanian, New Curonian, Old Prussian, and Semigallian. The Baltic languages show closest relationship with the Slavic languages, and are commonly reconstructed to have passed through common Proto-Balto-Slavic stage, during which numerous Common Balto-Slavic lexical, phonological, morphological and accentological isoglosses developed. It is a relatively new language, its first written accounts date to 1530 A.D.